


Abnormal Return

by meotional



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, let's deal with our issues by never talking about them ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:51:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meotional/pseuds/meotional
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He reads the story of nine hundred and seventy-three days of your life in the detritus of his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abnormal Return

For a half a day, it’s like he never left.

The shouting is normal, and the slammed doors are normal, and the cold silence is normal. You take some time to write an angry blog post with lots of capslock and delete it immediately, as you’ve done at least a dozen times before, and remember that you need to call Harry and don’t, and sit behind a newspaper until you get hungry, and go for take-away and bring it back and leave half (the half without garlic) in the kitchen and take the rest to the couch and tune in to a Doctor Who marathon. Sherlock doesn’t touch the take-away, of course, but after a while he makes a lot of noise in the fridge and emerges with three dinner rolls, and eats them perched in his armchair - _his_ armchair, which no one has sat in for thirty-two months - with his knees drawn up to his chest, and yeah, that’s normal too. 

Later, you stand at his doorway and watch him perplexedly. You can’t seem to summon a proper reaction now - you aren’t astonished, or dazed, or walking in a dream. You aren’t even particularly pissed at him (currently, at this moment). 

He stands in the middle of his room, arms akimbo, and scans, reads the story of nine hundred and seventy-three days of your life in the detritus of his. Bed stripped, linens returned to Mrs. Hudson. Curtains drawn at least twelve months ago judging by the dust accumulation, but one drawn back again very recently - dark swiggly trail in the dust on the windowsill, ring where a glass had been set. Fainter disturbances on the nightstand, perhaps from just slightly before the curtains were drawn, perhaps from a book or a phone or a plate, too faint to tell. Carpet swept regularly, the parallel hoover marks say Mrs. Hudson, the foot marks on top say non-housekeeping activity within the past seven days. Boxes. Large brown cardboard boxes from the packing store in Fulham. Double-ply. Expensive. For storage, not transport. Around the end of the bed are two more, old ones, water-stained, _trousers_ written and crossed out in a woman’s hand on one, _MED TEXTS_ in a man’s on the other. The end.

He folds back the lid. Inside are shirts, rows of them, packed tight in limp stacks. 

You watched, transfixed, and he holds up a shirt like a banner, lets it unfurl from the shoulders. “Bit wrinkled,” Sherlock says. 

His hair smells of cheap shampoo, the sort you find in hotel showers, and it’s long enough at the nape of his neck to tickle as you breathe in around a deep, wrenching sob. So he’s been traveling, living rough - there, Sherlock, a deduction, aren’t you proud. 

He seems as if he’s about to say something. The words are halfway across his lips, but in the end he remains silent. Eventually his hand drifts up to settle between your shoulder blades. You feel his fingers twitch, almost imperceptibly, as if he’s fighting the urge to tap them.

This is not normal - well, clearly, you’ve never smelled Sherlock’s hair before. You’ve never even hugged him before. But it’s right, you think, as the tears wring slowly out and you lean into his shoulder, spent and boneless. There is nothing normal here - about him, about you, about the empty grave you haven’t visited in nearly a year. 

“Are you done?” he asks. His voice is very close. You can feel it in your chest. 

You’ll never be done, but it’s enough to be going on with.


End file.
